FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Track 16 Nights presents a panel discussion on
COST OF FREEDOM: THE ANTHOLOGY OF PEACE AND ACTIVISM

Edited by Michael Annis, Mike Palecek, Whitney Trettien

March 21, 2008, 7 P.M.
RSVP 310.264.4678, Free admission

February 29, 2008–Track 16 Gallery is pleased to present a panel discussion on “Cost of Freedom.” “Cost of Freedom” (Howling Dog Press, 2007) is an anthology of stories of individuals and groups in the current American peace movement. The book has been praised by Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Thom Hartmann, Harry Belafonte, Ralph Nader, and Ramsey Clark.

Challenging this suspiciously heinous conception of patriotism, novelist Mike Palecek began gathering stories from activists across the United States, asking their perspective on the “cost of freedom.” He found accomplices in Whitney Trettien, an MIT graduate student, and Michael Annis, an independent publisher. Together, the three of them assembled contributions from activists who knew that America was losing her Constitution to liars, murderers, and thieves.

The resulting letters, articles, sentencing statements, songs, poems, collages and photos are Cost of Freedom. From a grandmother’s stay at Camp Casey to a young man’s counter-inauguration protest (and subsequent run-in with the FBI), Cost of Freedom documents the everyday revolutionary acts of over 75 courageous men and women -- common citizens with an uncommon resolve and mission in life for peace, truth, and liberty, oftentimes at their personal expense.

Panelists include Rex Butters, Elena Siff Erenberg, Michael Palecek, and Thomas M. Sipos. The discussion will focus on US foreign policy, the Iraq War, the protest movement, etc. What’s the current status of the antiwar movement? What hasn’t it been more successful? What may the future hold? Will the upcoming elections change our foreign policy?

To stand as one against tyranny . . . Cost of Freedom celebrates that.

BIOS:
Writer, activist and former federal prisoner for peace, MIKE PALECEK is currently organizing a book tour to promote Cost of Freedom and his latest work, Iowa Terror. He hails from Iowa. His other books include Looking for Bigfoot, The Truth, Joe Coffee’s Revolution, Terror Nation, The Last Liberal Outlaw, and others. For more information, http://www.iowapeace.com.

WHITNEY TRETTIEN is a Truman Scholar and graduate student in Comparative Media Studies at MIT. She has worked as a community organizer, freelance writer, editor and librarian, and currently conducts research for HyperStudio, the Digital Humanities Lab at MIT. Whitney can be contacted at trettien@mit.edu.

Since 1981, MICHAEL ANNIS, founder of Howling Dog Press, has written and performed socially progressive works including the award-winning Brave New World Order; he’s lectured and taught, and published the works of some of the most revolutionary voices in America, such as William Burroughs, David Ray, Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsberg, Jim Corbett, Gregory Corso, Antler, Diane diPrima, Oswald Le Winter, Diane Wakoski, Gregory Greyhawk, Andrei Codrescu and many others, including indigenous writers and artists. He’s dedicated his life to activism and challenging the status quo of cultural repression, while bringing forth alternative perspectives from cultural trailblazers.

BLURBS FOR COST OF FREEDOM:

“There is good reason to have at your disposal things that remind you of things as they are. COST OF FREEDOM is a perfect candidate; it does more than remind: it also informs.”
— Harry Belafonte

“This varied and exciting collection graphically reveals the vitality and expanse of the popular movements opposing violence and criminal ventures abroad. It should inspire many more to join in these efforts to create a powerful force of concerned citizens that cannot be ignored, and that will help shape a much more hopeful and decent future.”
— Noam Chomsky

“COST OF FREEDOM is a powerful cry for peace—the only state in which freedom is possible. War, its threat and preparation, together with the further impoverishment of the people they promise, are the greatest enemies of freedom. Even more, this anthology proves that people and poets across America have, like Thoreau, refused to be outfaced by irrational things. Here is a chorus of the American people, matching the prophets of the past, whose voices are also present, singing peace will come through universal love and respect for the precious rights and dignity of every child, woman and man but only when the factually informed participation and perseverance of the people make war unthinkable. Your poets will then be the acknowledged legislators of peace on earth. Thanks for your powerful anthology and its repeated insistence on impeachment of Bush, Cheney, et al., which I hope will reach and motivate millions of people.”
— Ramsey Clark

“Looking at these pages, one is reminded of the persistence and the hope in movements to build a better world. This is something we clearly aren’t going to get from corporate media outlets. We can all learn a lesson from the contributors in this anthology, that we need to tell our own stories, remind each other why struggle is important, that we can be creative, have more fun, and that it’s possible to build the kind of power necessary to stop the madness.”
— Eric Galatas, Program Director, FreeSpeech Television

“COST OF FREEDOM is a beautiful, accessible, and meaningful history of recent American anti-war movements that should be on the coffee tables of every American home.”
— Thom Hartmann, Air America

“Are you civically indifferent to officialdom’s criminality and brutality against the powerless and defenseless, against children, mothers and fathers, against our constitution and other laws of the land? If this collection of passionate and rational prose, poetry, photographs and quotes from our courageous forebears does not stir you to join with other patriots for democratic actions and restorations, you are indeed civically inactive. And that’s no way to be self-respectful!” — Ralph Nader

“COST OF FREEDOM: one human gauntlet, made of whatever a human can make — a poem, a photograph, a statement, a rant, a banner, a graphic collage that mocks the machinery that made it possible, a human body cloaked in mourning, carrying a sign, a vessel of love, nostalgia and fury, protesting profiteering slaughter, demonstrating with amazing creative vigor and joy that human history is older ... and its future longer.”
— Kenneth Rosen, poet, and professor at University of Maine

“COST OF FREEDOM vividly documents the actions of citizens challenging corporate government. It leaves readers with hope—the hope that citizens will get organized and take back their government. For too long, corporations have dominated government, and when it comes to issues of war and peace the military-industrial complex, big oil and international corporations have used the U.S. military to enforce their form of corporate globalization—trade that puts corporate profits ahead of the basic necessities of the people, saving the environment and a fair economy where wealth is distributed equitably. Read this book, get excited and get active. We need active participants in U.S. democracy if we are going to ever really have a government of, by, and for the people. You are not alone.”
— Kevin Zeese, Director of Democracy Rising, and Chair of Voters For Peace